Speakers for this event

• Arun Sharma

  Arun Sharma

  Arun Sharma was born and raised in New York State. He holds a MA Ceramics from University of Wales Institute, UK (2011), a MFA from the University of Washington, USA (2009), and a BFA from Alfred University, USA (2001). Arun has lived and worked as an artist in the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and the UK where he was awarded a US-UK Fulbright grant to research the Fragmented Figure at the National Center for Ceramic Studies at the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff. Arun has received numerous grants, awards and residencies nationally and internationally and has been invited to lecture and teach at universities in the UK, USA and Australia. Arun Sharma now lives in Sydney and continues to exhibit his artwork nationally and internationally. Most recently he was selected in the Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale 2019 Korea. Arun Sharma’s autobiographical artwork revolves mainly around the figure. He examines birth and death and their relationship in the overall schema of human life. He is also interested in the relationship clay has to the human body, both physically and metaphorically. Using emotively beautiful work he elevates the viewer’s senses by drawing them into a world beyond the familiar, all the while presenting identifiable themes. click here to go to Arun’s website Portrait: Barbara Katzin

• David Ray

  David Ray

  David's ceramics have built a reputation for being wild and flamboyant Baroque creations. Conceptually, the creations explore function and dysfunction within our consumeristic society. The handmade is an idealistic idea he holds dear within his making process. Decoration is incorporated within the body of the work; weaving, twisting and turning, with a confounding plethora of images and motifs. He believes life is a juxtaposition between the perception of the beautiful and the ugly, which creates a subjective perception towards making and looking at Art itself. David Ray retired from RMIT University in 1996 with Honours and his work is held in Australian and international collections. He has held numerous Artist in Residence placements and he lists that Liverpool (U.K.) was his most 'mind-bending'. Various publications and articles have been written about his work. He comes up when Googled! Terrible at self-promotion, David prefers making in his studio in the Yarra Valley, Victoria and continuing to exhibit within both realms of the 'Art' and 'Craft' worlds. He is a trained secondary teacher, specialising in trauma informed practice, with 15 years experience in this field. He says "time is precious, but teaching and making both provide a balance within my life". click here to go to David’s website Image: Wild (2017), handbuilt earthenware, decal, enamel gold, 48 x 40 x 36 cm Winner of the 2017 Manningham Victorian Ceramic Art Award Image Credit: Shannon McGrath

• Heidi McKenzie

  Heidi McKenzie

  Heidi McKenzie is a Toronto-based ceramic artist. She found her true calling at 40 when her parents found an essay she had written when she was nine years old – “What I Want To Be When I Grow Up… A Potter.” She left a 20-year career in arts management and radio to apprentice in her father’s ancestral home at the foothills of the Himalayas with India’s foremost studio potter, Mini Singh (a student of Bernard Leach). Heidi returned to Canada and completed her Diploma at Sheridan College in 2012 and subsequently her MFA at OCADU in 2014. In 2011 Heidi received the Emerging Artist Award at Toronto Artists Project, and in 2012 exhibited at the Toronto International Art Fair. In 2013, Heidi was funded by the Ontario Arts Council to create in Jingdezhen, China and in Bali, Indonesia. In 2014 Heidi completed a residency at Guldagergaard International Centre for Ceramic Research. In 2017 Heidi received OAC funding to work in Sydney Australia, to apprentice with Master Mitsuo Shoji and expand her sculptural vocabulary. Heidi has exhibited nationally and internationally, including biennales and Romania and Hungary, and at NCECA (Milwaukee, Portland). She is recipient of a 2017 Craft Ontario Award and Best in Show Ontario Artists Association Biennial Award. Heidi maintains both sculpture and functional ware studio practices. Her work engages issues of identity and belonging. She is an active arts journalist and ceramic arts reviewer. click here to go to Heidi’s website Portrait: Ali Kazimi

• Kevin Murray

  Kevin Murray

  Dr Kevin Murray is an independent writer and curator, Adjunct Professor at RMIT University and Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Major current roles are managing editor for Garland Magazine and the Online Encyclopedia of Crafts in the Asia Pacific Region. In 2000-2007 he was Director of Craft Victoria where he developed the Scarf Festival and the South Project, a four-year program of exchange involving Melbourne, Wellington, Santiago and Johannesburg.  He has curated many exhibitions, including 'Signs of Change: Jewellery Designed for a Better World';  'The World of Small Things'; 'Symmetry: Crafts Meet Kindred Trades and Professions'; 'Water Medicine: Precious Works for an Arid Continent'; 'Guild Unlimited: Ten Jewellers Make Insignia for Potential Guilds'; 'Seven Sisters: Fibre Works from the West';  'Common Goods: Cultures Meet through Craft' for the 2006 Commonwealth Games and Joyaviva: Live Jewellery Across the Pacific that toured Latin America.  His books include Judgement of Paris: Recent French Thought in an Australian Context (Allen & Unwin, 1991), Craft Unbound: Make the Common Precious (Thames & Hudson, 2005) and with Damian Skinner, Place and Adornment: A History of Contemporary Jewellery in Australia and New Zealand (Bateman, 2014). He is currently a Senionr Vice-President of the World Craft Council Asia Pacific Region, coordinator of Southern Perspectives and Sangam: A Platform for Craft-Design Parnerships. He teaches at RMIT University, the University of Melbourne, Swinburne University and University of New South Wales. click here to go to Kevin’s website

• Lisa Cahill

  Lisa Cahill

  Lisa Cahill has held several senior roles in government and the design sector. Prior to joining the Design Centre as Associate Director in 2015, she was the CEO of the Australian Design Alliance. Her various government roles include ministerial adviser, SBS, the Australia Council for the Arts and the City of Sydney. She was also research manager for the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies. Working variously as a curator, writer and creative producer in the visual and performing arts, Lisa co-curated the Australian exhibition for the Triennale of Craft in Kanazawa, Japan in 2013 and New Weave: Contemporary Approaches to the Traditions of Weaving for Object (now Australian Design Centre) in 2014. Lisa completed a Bachelor of Communications in Professional Writing at the University of Canberra and a Masters of Arts Administration from the University of New South Wales. Currently Lisa is co-chair of the Australian Craft and Design Centre Network and is a member of the Interim Council of the Sydney Culture Network. click here to go to the Australian Design Centre website

• Neville Assad-Salha

  Neville Assad-Salha

  Neville Assad-Salha studied at the South Australian School of Art from 1973 to 1976. He has been a practising ceramist/ potter for over 40 years. He has held many solo exhibitions and group shows. Neville taught ceramics at many universities in Melbourne and Adelaide. He is a former professor at the University of Beirut. He has attended many international symposiums. Neville lives between South Australia and Lebanon.

• Prue Venables

  Prue Venables

  Numerous national and international exhibitions, awards and publications celebrate the fine porcelain work of Prue Venables. Included in many public and private collections worldwide, her pots explore complex and unusual approaches to working with porcelain, challenge the significance of daily objects and highlight the richness that they bring to our lives. 'A search for simplicity and quietness, an essential stillness, motivates my work. The making of functional pots, the exploration of objects to be held and used, alongside a search for new and innovative forms, provides a lifetime of challenge and excitement. A beautiful cup seems simple and yet is capable of gently holding and reflecting so much ceremony and personal connection. The kitchen is full of such objects, quietly sitting, watching, waiting. The made object stands innocently – as if oblivious to the complexities of its history, of making and firing processes. The translucency of porcelain, the light dancing on the sprung tension of a rim, the softly melting body inviting touch, even the frustration of failure – all this and more continues to invite me.' Dancing together: The magic of the dance. As if stepping out to music, there is a playful and connected interaction that is growing here. The timing is perfect as the meeting of minds and emotions intersect. The learning is exciting on every level. click here to go to Prue’s website Image credits: portrait Christopher Sanders / objects Terence Bogue

• Rebecca Coates

  Rebecca Coates

  Rebecca Coates is the director of Shepparton Art Museum. Located in regional Victoria, SAM is recognised for its significant collection of Australian ceramics, notable historic works, and a growing collection of outstanding contemporary Australian art by Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists. Rebecca is an established curator, writer and lecturer, with over 25 years professional art museum and gallery experience in both Australia and overseas. She has a PhD in Art History and was previously a Lecturer at the University of Melbourne in Art History and Art Curatorship, where she is an Honorary Fellow. She speaks and writes regularly on contemporary art and theory, curatorial practice, and art in the public realm, and sits on a number of advisory boards. click here to go to the Shepparton Art Meseum website Image: Dr Rebecca Coates in front of Angelina Gorge’s painting in SAM collection

• Robyn Phelan

  Robyn Phelan

  Robyn Phelan is currently undertaking a Master by Research at RMIT where she teachers professional practice and ceramics in the School of Fine Art. She works sculpturally, using clay and believes that ceramics objects are keepers of memories and experiences. Reference to art history and a sense of place informs her work. Clay is a material that has immense agency and is intrinsic to universal human experience. Robyn’s work utilises these conceptual and material connections to ask, what and who are we are? Her Masters research is questioning our relationship and role to making contemporary artwork about the Australian landscape. Robyn has a diverse range of professional and visual arts experience. She has worked at major Melbourne institutions such as the National Gallery of Victoria and Museums Australia and was an active committee member at West Space ARI. She has worked as curator, program manager and project coordinator at Craft Victoria at both Gertrude Street, Fitzroy and Flinders Lane, Melbourne. She is an avid observer, writer and supporter of contemporary ceramic practice who writes in each issue for the Journal of Australian Ceramics, maintains a blog on ceramic exhibitions, http://lookingwithsofteyes.blogspot.com and is a founding member of Bluestone Collection. Robyn's most recent study has been a degree in Ceramics at RMIT where she now teachers in Ceramics and Professional Practice. click here to go to Robyn’s website

• Sinsa Mansell

  Sinsa Mansell

  A passionate and proud Tasmanian Aboriginal woman from the Northern region of Tasmania, Sinsa Mansell is a performer and choreographer as well as Co-Founder, Program Producer and Project Officer with the successful pakana kanaplila- a Traditional/Contemporary Tasmanian Aboriginal dance troupe. Dancing statewide, nationally and internationally for well over a decade, Sinsa has been working to reclaim cultural dance within the island State of Tasmania for the past 15 years. Through educational dance workshops, pakana kanaplila aims to create a safe and inviting space to broaden the awareness of the rich cultural heritage and the living ancient traditional practices through song and dance; keeping to traditional Tasmanian Aboriginal culture. Sinsa facilitates open opportunities for the broader community to engage with local First Nations peoples through educational dance workshops, ceremonial performance at a wide range of events, including fun and interactive workshops in schools. She is passionate about creating a greater awareness of Tasmania’s ancient traditions.

• Yi-hui Wang

  Yi-hui Wang

  Yi-hui Wang is a ceramic artist and researcher. Born in 1977 in Taiwan, she is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Cultural Vocation Development, National Taipei University of Technology, Taiwan and a member of the International Academy of Ceramics (IAC). She received her BFA, along with a teaching qualification from the National Taiwan University of Arts (NTUA), in 2000, an MFA from Taipei National University of the Arts（TNUA） in 2003, and her PhD from Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) in 2009. Yi-hui has exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous major museums and galleries in Taiwan, China, Korea, Japan, Sweden, Spain and Australia. In her work, the abstracted forms refer to the human organism and to bodily experience, and question contemporary issues of sexuality, desire and identity.